


Embers, Burning

by AceQueenKing



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Drawbacks to Secret Weddings, F/M, Forbidden Love, Loneliness, Melancholy, Missing Scene, Wedding Night, Wedding Rituals, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-03-15 08:47:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13609800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/pseuds/AceQueenKing
Summary: With every passing moment, Padmé realizes all the things she'll never have at her wedding.





	Embers, Burning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Prix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prix/gifts).



This was not the dress she was meant to wear. Heads of state, even former ones, wore red to their wedding. Dresses made for the leaders of the Naboo were celebrations that took months and were one of a kind; her dress should have been red, with gold accents carefully affixed by her friends and family. It should have taken months, her sisters and her mothers tracing their family history through gold thread on red silk. She should not be getting married in a Pauper's gown, certainly not this white, lace gown she borrowed from Sabé.

This was little more than an antique; the dress was old-fashioned, especially the headgear. No doubt it had originally belonged to Sabé's mother or grandmother. No doubt Sabé would wear it with pride, but Padmé's first thought upon seeing herself in it was only the sheer wrongness of it.

It was not the gown she was meant to wear.

That wrong feeling had not gone away as she joined Anakin and the monk he'd somehow scared up for them in the veranda of Varykino.

If anything, it had intensified.

Her fiancé was the wrong man, too; certainly, she never dreamed she would be marrying a man five years her junior. Anakin was not immune to the overwhelming feeling of wrongness; she could see him nervously playing with the ends of a robe he'd tried to make less Jedi-like. He had only _slightly_ succeeded in doing so. Had she gone through the proper channels, as she had always imagined she would for her spouse, then their marriage would have been carefully arbitrated; months of paperwork to bind two families' fortunes tightly. Sola and her husband had waited over a year, and she had never seen Sola smile so brightly as when she had signed their family sigil, at long last, in gold on her husband's face.

But Anakin, of course, would never pass such a test. His family had no money, no history; he was a Jedi, and the council had only granted five provisions for legal marriage in a thousand years. They would never sign their names in gold, would never wear the bands of the river goddess. It would be a secret; she would be publicly unclaimed.

The more she thought about her wedding, the worse she felt; no witnesses but droids, the holy man giving them their ceremony one who belonged to an order neither of them belonged to. No Sola, no mother, no father. No Pooja weaving flowers in her hair, no Ryuu dancing between her skirts.

For a moment, she thought of interrupting the holy man's droning prayer to a god she did not believe in, and calling the whole thing off.

But then she caught sight if Anakin's eyes. Clarion blue and sparkling with happiness, he stared at her like a man in a desert without water - and perhaps that was what he was. He needed her, loved her; and for that, she could put up with the odd, overwhelming and oppressive feeling of wrongness. She was going to be his wife, after all; what was marriage but supporting him?

She sucked in her misgivings and flashed him a smile, squeezing his hands.

"I love you so much," he whispered, his lips barely moving. And she knew it was true; that he could and perhaps _would_ die for her. After Geonosis, they could no longer avoid that unpleasant possibility. This war would put both their lives in danger, but especially his. 

"I love you too," she whispered and prayed it would not come to death. She needed him, too. Their hearts were bound now; one could not live without the other. It was the way of the Naboo; one life, two bodies.

The holy man gestured for them to kiss. Anakin gave her a kiss so sweetly chaste it left her only thirsty. His eyes promised he would give her more, as many as he could, and she vowed to take them; she did not know when they would meet again, after all. A traitorous part of her wondered, once again, if this marriage was wise but - no, she would not allow herself to think of that. 

Satisfied, the holy man departed; the droids, too. Anakin shot her a nervous smile and lead her into the suite. She pulled gently on his robe, which fluttered to the ground with a deafening _thud_.

"Do you have any regrets?" He asked, in a loaded voice that suggested vulnerability; for a moment she saw the raw and jagged edge of the man that she'd first spotted in the garage on Tatooine, the burnished thread that she knew it would take only the barest tug to lay him bare before her. 

Was that what marriage was? That kind of destructive intimacy, to be asked to ruin one another and choosing not to? She pressed a hand to his chest and he shivered; he was young, inexperienced. She would be his first, she knew. He looked at her with love in his eyes, in his heart. Anakin was not a politician. His emotions laid bare. She both loved and hated him for asking. There were no good answers. 

"No," she said, and although she was a politician, she allowed him to see her face plain. This was not what she had planned for but - there was a rightness to this union, too. He was the right man for her, of that she had little doubt; he understood her at a level few wanted to. He would fight for the Republic to his last breath, as she would. Save the cruelties of a fate that had made him a Jedi, she knew Sola, mother, and father too would be with them tonight, eating a feast to toast their happiness.

But instead, there was no feast, no family.

They had only one another.

"Me neither," he said, and the smile on his face was naked _relief_ , plain and simple. He kneeled before her, a comic image considering he was still nearly as tall as she was even kneeling, but she appreciated him doing so all the same. He had been reading up on their traditions; he knew, she realized with a bittersweet relief, all the things she had left behind. 

"I cannot give you all the ceremonies you deserve, my lady," he murmured, his eyes blazing back upon hers; his love was a fire, and she felt as if she was but kindling standing before him. "I will kneel to you, my wife. I am yours, and your families'. For as long as you may wish me so."

The words, old and traditional, were not words that she'd have ever thought to have heard from his mouth. But it did not feel wrong; nor did his hands as he waited upon her word, holding onto her with a passion that made her feel nothing but love.

"Then kneel, Naberrie- _ska_ ," she said, giving him her surname for the first time, and felt possessiveness light a fire within her heart. He did as she asked, sliding down into a full crouch. She placed a hand on his head, painting the old symbol with her finger-tips onto his forehead. They did not have the gold ink that Sola had; this would have to do. A secret symbol, just for them. 

"Rise," she said, in a throaty voice. He did, and she saw him bare: the boy, the man, both staring at her in such hope and raw love that she could do nothing more than kiss him deep and shove him toward the bed. If their love was a fire, it would consume them both. He submitted as men should, falling gracefully onto the bed, spreading out like a particularly tempting sacrifice.

She sucked in a hot breath and jumped in after him. Perhaps he was not the man she was meant to marry, perhaps this was not the ceremony that she had been meant to have - but she would not change a thing.

One day, she thought, perhaps they would be able to make things proper, would be able to reform all the old laws that prevented their union. One day, she would write her name in gold on him, claim him publicly as her own.

But for now, they had one another, and it would be enough.

She kissed him deeply, ignoring her misgivings, and traced the sigil into his skin once more, hoping it would keep them both safe.


End file.
